Marriage is not what I expected. It’s better, richer, deeper, fuller.

Marriage is common grace. Grace given to believers and unbelievers alike. Grace that allows each marriage–each union of man and wife–to portray Christ’s relationship to His Church. What wonder!

Marriage is reconciliation. Though bride and groom are permanently joined at the altar, the ministry of reconciliation is ongoing for each day, each moment, for the rest of their lives. Continual reconciliation because each spouse is a sinner that must be perpetually reconciled to God and to one another if the marriage is to grow.

In that magical moment of “I Do,” two become one, but they are not automatically gifted a strong marriage. Rather that strength is built in the ordinary moments, the daily choices of interaction. As Paul David Tripp writes in his book What Did You Expect?,

The character and quality of our life is forged in the little moments. Every day we lay little bricks on the foundation of what our life will be. The bricks of words said, the bricks of actions taken the bricks of little decisions, the bricks of little thoughts, and the bricks of small-moment desires all work together to form the functional edifice that is your marriage. So, you have to view yourself as a marital mason.

Marriage is knowing. Knowing your darling intimately, fully, uniquely. Knowing and loving still. Loving because of the knowing. Loving in spite of the knowing. Loving being known.

Marriage is organic. Growing, changing, raw, earthy. Marriage is human, a covenant between a man and a woman before God. It grows or it ebbs. It changes as the humans within the marriage change. Marriage is to be tended for it is a little different each day.

Today marks seven years of marriage to my darling, my Stephen Andrew. This anniversary I am humbled as I see our marriage with new eyes. It takes more than I realized to create a robust, tender, forgiving, intentional marriage that accurately portrays Christ and the Church. God has poured out His grace upon us, and we look to Him as we embrace each other and, hand in hand, dance to the music of our marriage.